Ballistic performance evaluation of aluminium alloy 6061 surface composites fabricated by friction stir processing

Abstract

Rolled Homogeneous Armour steel is universally recognised as the newlinedominant material for the manufacturing of armoured military vehicles. From newlinethe last decade, advancements in materials technology have resulted in usage newlineof light-weight surface composite materials for defence applications. In this newlinethesis surface composite prepared by Friction Stir Process (FSP) is used for newlinedeveloping light-weight ballistic protection materials. In recent years, FSP newlinetechniques have been widely used for the development of surface composites newlinein a more promising way. In spite of vast literature related to FSP of aluminium newlinealloys, there is a vast research gap that exists to study the ballistic performance newlineof FSPed surface composites. Hence in this thesis, the ballistic performance newlineand the failure mechanism of FSPed surface composites is presented. newlineThe ballistic performance and failure mechanism of FSPed AA6061 newlinesurface composite targets fabricated by FSP technique has been investigated. newlineThe thesis consists of five main stages. In the first stage, the Base Metal newlineAA6061 plates are FSPed to identify the suitable process parameters namely newlinethe rotational speed and the tool travel speed to produce defect- free surface newlinecomposite targets. Standard test like macroscopic analysis, tensile test and newlinemicrohardness test are conducted to figure out the best process parameters. newlineUsing these best process parameters all the surface composite targets are newlinefabricated throughout the research work. newlineIn the second stage, the ballistic performance and failure mechanism newline